Player vs. Player-Campaign

Hiho Community,

in my new Campaign i like to try something new but i am not sure if its playable..

I have four Characters starting together but one of them is a Reincarnation of a Evil God(the Player don't know this and i wanna tell it to him so late as possible) which want to Destroy the whole World....
After the Evil Charakter recognize his true Beeing he gonna get Ressources from me( f.e. i say u have at this location a dungeon where u can position 3-5 Monsterpacks with a CR +- the Party etc...)
The Evil Player and the Good Party are Opponents from this point.

Have someone of u already tried something lake this? What are your Experiences? My Problem would be if the Player which i gonna choose would say "No i dont wanna be the Evil Guy"....

sounds like Baldur's Gate the computer game.

I remember a campaign in which I didn't participate. The party had been adventuring for years and at last they'd found the BBEGs last bastion. The DM invited another player to play the BBEG in the final confrontation. He told the player to create a Wizard of very high level and choose spells and last line of defense creatures.

Before the party reached the decision to start the assault, however, they had some other business to attend to. They begun playing at about noon and they confronted the BBEG at about midnight. The BBEG-player had been waiting for the most part of the night.

When the party confronted the BBEG the player started to make his evil-guy-speach but was interrupted by the party who insisted on initiative. In the first round the halfling chopped off his head with a vorpal sword.

Hate to be discouraging, but this doesn't seem like such a good idea to me. What do you see as the advantage? Are you tired of DMing and trying to get this player to be the DM for a while? Why do you need to alter the player's character to do it? I mean, as DM you control just about everything in the game world EXCEPT the player characters. Why try to control them too?

. . . . . . . -- Eric

PS -- On the other hand, there's an RPG called Rune which does something similar to what you're talking about. Everyone takes turns DMing and playing, and you keep score. Players get points for killing critters and solving problems, DMs get points for coming as close as possible to killing the PCs, but lose points if they actually kill someone.

Frostmarrow said:

The BBEG-player had been waiting for the most part of the night.

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Yeah that could be a problem that the BBEG (= Big BAAAD Evil Guy? )
is getting a little boring...

Well, one thing you might want to check out is Reverse Dungeon, put out by WotC for 2nd ed. It has guidelines for players to set up their own dungeon inhabitants.

As far as the player being reluctant, I would bring up the subject with him. Just don't spill all the secrets:

"Well, Bob, without going into specifics, I have some ideas for the game, and your character, that might mean you'd be working at goals at cross purposes with the party. Are you down with that?"

I wouldn't worry about too much about the other players. As long as they have fun, most players wouldn't hesitate to stab each other in the back. You're just speeding the process along.

Pyske said:

What do you see as the advantage? Are you tired of DMing and trying to get this player to be the DM for a while? Why do you need to alter the player's character to do it? I mean, as DM you control just about everything in the game world EXCEPT the player characters. Why try to control them too?

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I don't gonna control the Player. He would decide how to fight vs. the Good-Party and also with which Monsters etc. I would only observe and act if any things running wrong

I am not really sure now if i gonna really do this thats the point why i wrote this thread

Horrendos said:

I don't gonna control the Player. He would decide how to fight vs. the Good-Party and also with which Monsters etc.

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Well, what happens if he decides to not fight vs. the Good Party at all? What if he decides to use his power for Good? Say he decides to take those monsters and set them agains an evil orc army or something? What happens then? My point being that if you want to ensure antagonism, you can't put it in the hands of a player who is supposed to have free will.

I have seen occasions where doing player vs. player works for single encounters. I have yet to see it work well for entire campaigns.

Consider what Frostmarrow mentioned - the Evil player sets up his dungeon and runs his monsters. What does he do while the party is doing all their role-playing and mucking about in town and soforth? Sit on his hands?

Definitely sounds like using Baldur's Gate II to me.

This kind of campaign can work out fairly well, I would think. From the point of view of a player, it can be fun to work against the rest of the party. I am currently in a Rebellion Era Star Wars Campaign where my character is actually working for the Empire. We've been playing for several months now and the party is still overcoming the obstacles that the DM places.

Obviously, the other PCs are starting to get suspicious, but it has been fun to roleplay. And eventually, there will be a big confrontation when my betrayals are discovered. I look forward to that, even if it means the death of my character.

Honestly, I have to say that this has created more work for the DM, as opposed to less. He's kind of running two campaigns simultaneously. First, he's running the party's campaign where we all run missions for the Rebellion, but then he's also running a side campaign wherein my character betrays the others and sends secret messages during the 'downtime', as well as when I help plan deceptions which throw suspicion onto others in the group or NPCs we meet.

It only works because the DM and I are willing to put in extra time to make it work. Asking first is a very good idea, since it will require extra effort.